Duke in the Window Seat
by stephbriar
Summary: What if Nathan and Duke shared an old flame? Duke/OC. Probably some Audrey/Nathan and Nuke-y flashbacks later.
1. Chapter 1

He's asleep in the window seat, breathing softly, long hair splayed across the pillow, limbs curled. He would look almost peaceful but for the swelling around his eye, the bandages, the bloody wounds.

The dawn light is creeping across the kitchen, beginning to warm my toes on the tile floor where I have been standing studying him, for how long, I'm not sure. Feels like hours, probably minutes.

It's been seven years since I've seen him. So much has changed and yet there he is, back in the window seat and I feel transported to a slightly more innocent time.

When we met, I was 16, he was 17. I had just spent the year mostly alone and deeply immersed in work. Research, clinical observation, flight training. Not your typical teenager by any stretch of the imagination. Neither was he I suppose, he'd been fending for himself for nearly a decade, but we found some youthful innocence that summer. All kinds of adolescent rites of passage. Road trips, camping, sailing, cookouts, sex on the beach. Hell, we even went to _dances._

20 years later, another dark shroud has descended over the seemingly idyllic venue for our coming of age adventures. He has retreated to my home, my window seat, to lick his wounds. It's flattering, in a dark kind of way.

I crawl up beside him where he lays, bathed in the morning sun, and wrap a tentative arm gently around his waist. He groans quietly and turns onto his back and his anxiety, sadness, despair wash over me in a wave before I am able to realize what is happening and raise my defences. I shrink back, tears springing to my eyes. I quickly employ a mental technique that comes surprisingly naturally to me, considering it hasn't been used in nearly 30 years, but it's too late. I've revealed myself.

"Steph?" he rasps "are you ok?"

"I'm fine," I assure him while padding over to the freezer to fetch him an ice pack. "Here. For your eye"

"That was totally something but I so don't have the energy to pry it out of the Steph vault right now" He grumbles, snatching the ice pack and rolling into the window, turning his back to me.

I sigh and perching myself on the other end of the bench, tilt my head toward him so I can look him in the eye. "It was empathy" I say

"Like, 'poor wounded Duke empathy'?" he attempts. I purse my lips. He rolls his eyes "Of course not, like trouble empathy"

"Yahtzee" I deadpan "don't worry, I have impeccable defences, it just caught me off guard."

"great" he moans "I activated your trouble, like I didn't have enough guilt rattling around in here"

"Don't feel too bad, I converted it into a kind of superpower when I was a kid, doesn't do me much harm. Pretty useful, actually"

"Yeah, if only you could inflict empathy, that'd be handy" I quirk my eyebrows "You CAN?"

"Oh yeah, very handy, especially with psychopaths" I smirk.

He chuckles "You're my favourite kind of diabolical, Steph"

"Isn't that why you're here?"


	2. Chapter 2

**So I decided to make this into something, I think. Feedback welcomed.**

A shrill beeping wakes me in the middle of the night. Groaning, I disentangle myself from the warm embrace I have been asleep in and, rolling onto my back, watch as Steph fumbles for her phone, swatting the night table several times before finally connecting with it and drawing the glowing screen to her face.

"Shit," she breathes "Shit shit shit shit shit"

She springs out of bed and has flown into the office before I have time to ask her what it is. Too groggy and too tired to care about whatever fire she needs to be putting out at this hour, I drift back to sleep.

For my second rude awakening of the night, Steph straddles my hips, gently pressing a finger to my forehead. It's like I'm a teenager again, being dragged out of bed at some ungodly hour to go clamming or fly fishing or rockclimbing.

"We're burning daylight here, Crocker" she'd bark, tapping my forehead, never wearing any clothes, like some kind of demented sexy drill sargeant.

She is not being so playful right now, however. "Duke, get up, get dressed, we need to go."

"Unghhhh," I groan, reaching for her waist, and pulling her down on top of me "just five more minutes mom.. whats the big rush anyway?"

"The FBI has been called in to investigate a series of disappearances in Haven"

"Oh. That's bad" I mumble, my face pressed into her breasts. She sits up again

"Luckily I had a notification set up and caught it right away. I told them I'd head up and handle it, but we need to get there now and get this case solved and my report in before they send reinforcements."

Steph is generally pretty calm under pressure so judging from her anxiety level this looks like it could become an extremely undesirable situation rather quickly. I was so looking forward to convalescing in New York for another few days, or at the very least having some morning sex before springing into action, but clearly neither of those things are going to be happening for me.

"Alright alright, throw me my pants"

The sun is just beginning to rise as we reach cruising altitude and Steph finally relaxes back into her seat, winking at me. This woman slays me. I've known her 20 years and she can still make my heart race with a glance. Watching her pilot an airplane is a new and, despite the nervewracking circumstances, kind of arousing experience for me. I really need to figure out how to rein in this desire before we get to the police station, or Nathan will be extremely unimpressed. Well, even more extremely unimpressed. Thank goodness Audrey is gonna be around to take the edge off his pack of weird Steph associated emotions, most of which I'm sure will be taken out on me. As usual.

"So, this is going to be weird" she states plainly

"Yeah, when's the last time you saw Nathan?"

"Around ten years ago. Spent the whole summer in Haven working on a book. He was pretty good to have around when I needed some distraction." She smirks

Steph harbours many secrets, I'm sure, but when it comes to her romantic entanglements she's an open book. I often wonder whether it's a calculated move on her part to avoid being accused of dishonesty or duplicity in her relationships, or if she is just bragging. Knowing her, almost definitely the former. No one can accuse her of ever giving them any illusions of exclusivity, but Nathan sure as hell tried that summer she and I hooked up. What a nightmare that was.

Now I am the one feeling jealous because, despite knowing where I stand with Steph, it's never been quite where I wanted to be.

Steph is so full of contradictions. She will let you in, but with the littlest trigger will just totally close up again. I guess I do that too, feeling vulnerable is not exactly my favourite thing. Yet like her, I throw myself into love deeply, intensely, and then toss out some rudimentary defences that keep my soft underbelly protected and are probably totally bewildering to everyone around me. Steph's cynical 'all good things will come to an end' attitude is one of those defences, I think. I don't know, maybe she's right. In any case all this conflicting baggage means we've been very probably deeply in love, but just floating around eachother, for the past 20 years. Or maybe more like in orbit, crossing paths occasionally, but far more commited to independence, no strings, never sitting still.

I'm betting by the end of that summer ten years ago, Nate was fantasizing about marriage and babies and white picket fences and she left him with a 'love you' and a peck on the cheek, secure in her belief that that sort of thing would quickly turn into a nightmare.

"Break his heart again?" My tone is a bit more accusatory than I intended, stupid hackles.

She sighs "Hope not."

We arrive at Haven PD in time for the start of the work day and, following Steph saying her hellos to half the freaking force, we find Audrey and Nathan in their office doing paperwork. Steph steps back motioning for me to go in first.

"Sure. I'll be your human shield," I grumble.

Here we go.


	3. Chapter 3

**Audrey's POV, watching this bizarre love triangle with an irritated critical eye**

I've just spent my past few days chasing down missing tourists who all turned out to be corralled in some abandoned home, the monument to a failed relationship between a troubled bed and breakfast operator and his wife, who ran off with a guy from Michigan last week. Run of the mill trouble, yes, and no one died which is a bonus, but nevertheless, exhausting. So when Duke waltzes in with a woman I've never seen before and Nathan stiffens in his chair and adopts his shocked-wounded battle stance, I feel... supremely annoyed.

I'm introduced, briefly, by a wavering voiced Nathan, and while they discuss the logistics of covering up this unfortunately multi-state trouble, I am studying their interaction intently.

It seems obvious to me from his reaction to seeing her that she and Nathan have some kind of painful history. Possibly a romantic one?

What's more, Duke is shifting nervously back and forth and focused a little too intently on Nathan, very careful not to touch Steph. What happened here, and when? Is she the reason for the rift between Nathan and Duke? Now I'm going to have to pry all of the answers I need out of Nathan when this paperwork is done or I am going to be agonizing about it all day, and he's probably going to get all brooding but keep saying he's fine and... man I'm way too tired for this crap. I'm kicking myself for not realizing that someone out of state was bound to report their loved one missing and send the feds our way. It's nice to know there's a barrier between the troubles and the prying eyes of the FBI, even if it does happen to be a leggy brunette bombshell who makes both of my boys sweat.

After the requisite hour of brooding silence following Duke and Steph's departure, I decide it's prying question time.

"So, you gonna tell me what that was all about?" I ask, waving my pen in a circle, exaggeratedly.

"Hm, what?" He mumbles, looking up from his paperwork and giving me his best expression of feigned confusion. "Oh. Well, a woman from Virginia reported her missing husband and..."

"You know that's not what I'm asking you, Nathan" I say sternly, narrowing my eyes at him "What's the story there, who is she?"

He sighs and rubbing his eyes, leans back in his chair and begins

"Growing up, Steph was one of the summer people. She's from one of Haven's founding families, but her father struck it rich on some real estate development deal and moved them out to the middle of nowhere New Mexico when she was 6."

I nod, my head cocked, making it clear that he needs to go on.

"I spent a lot of summers hanging out with her, the last couple with Duke too and then when we were about 17 it became pretty clear that I wasn't welcome anymore."

"Sounds messy," I know Nathan isn't exactly a chatterbox, but some detail would be nice. "Hot FBI profiler ex girlfriend, hey? Your closet is just full of interesting skeletons..."

"I don't think she was ever my girlfriend, though at times it definitely felt like she was" Oh god, lip pursing, jaw clenching, this chick really did a number on him. "Anyway, she was already on her way to becoming a criminal psychology guru and then she got recruited to the academy right after that summer, stopped coming to Haven. I haven't seen much of her over the past 20 years."

.. but you've probably been following her work closely. Great, now I'm annoyed AND jealous "Well maybe you two should grab a drink at the gull and catch up before she leaves town," I offer.

"I don't know if that's a good idea, Parker" He says, but he seems more relaxed now, his tone less severe. Like the suggestion has absolved him of guilt for feeling happy to see her "Plus, she showed up with Duke, probably wants to spend time with him."

"Well maybe you can all hang out, you and Duke have been getting along better these days" Man, I can be such a bitch sometimes.

"Yeah and I'd like to keep it that way" He said, smirking slightly.

"Fine. Fine. Forget I said anything" I groan

Of course, he doesn't forget, and we spend the rest of the morning sitting in strained silence.


End file.
